I finally made the statement to the police. The night before I'd been alone in my flat, quietly going mad. What I was about to do was impossible, dangerous, and far, far beyond my capabilities.

I must have passed out around 4am. My alarm screeched, and immediately I was wide awake. To wake up with fear and panic and dread and with a whole day stretched ahead ...

I considered wearing tweed trousers, but they made me itch. I wore my next smartest outfit; a pinstripe shirt dress over jeans, so the police would know that I was not a mad-case but someone perfectly capable of ironing and therefore reliable, truthful and good.

Confronted by the bulletproof glass that separated me from the desk sergeant, I felt a wave of relief because from now on decisions would be made for me. I was now a citizen reporting a crime and today there were rules and procedures and official reports, where yesterday there had been only falling.

An interview room was found for us. It smelled pretty bad in there, a chemically, covering-up type smell. I was left alone while the detective made tea and collected pens and paper.

It took six hours. I spent a lot of time watching her write.

She was in better shape than I am. Her hair was swept into a thick ponytail. She reminded me of a girl I knew who used to ride horses.

I told her about rapes and about beatings. I told her everything I remembered, though I squirmed to be away from there and the sheer physical discomfort of the straight-back chair and the smell and stuffy heat, and I am proud of that. I broke down only once. Describing one particularly humiliating event I said to her, 'I feel so ashamed.' She replied, without looking up from her writing, that my reaction was 'very common'.

There was no room for me to cry, and so I didn't. She had to stop and massage her hand, which was red in the places that the pen dug in. She shuffled and read and passed the pages to me to be signed. When I left it was like being let out of school. I had done my bit, I had done my difficult thing.

I did feel elated. I talked excitedly and I was proud of myself, as if I'd just aced an exam, - an exam on which my life depended.

September 5 2006

I recalled the nights that he would come into my room and do stuff to me there, and the nights when I'd have to share his bed. I'd lie as far away from him as possible, hating myself, thinking that my waiting and expecting were causing him to do those things. One morning after a night in his bed the father-monster shouted at me because the skirt I'd put on for school was too short.

September 10

I'm already shot to pieces before the police arrive. My mother and I have waited in all day. The detective has telephoned twice to apologise for being delayed, he says he's dealing with illegal immigrants. And then they are here. The detective springs out of the car and strides towards me. He looks confident and healthy and happy. He pulls up a chair.

After nine months of nothing much happening, it comes as a shock when the policeman says: "We're arresting him on Thursday." Every muscle in my back and neck tightens. I feel the urge to take my own life. It's the fear I guess. I remember him whispering into my ear that if I ever told anyone, he would find me and kill me. That was the pact: as long as I never told, I got to live.

I want to shout out: "Be careful. He is a monster. You don't know him. He's not like other men." I want to advise the detective to take a harpoon or some other monster catcher.

I get very little sleep. The day of the arrest comes and I walk around with my heart in my mouth. At 2.30pm he calls and he tells me they didn't arrest him, something else came up. He doesn't say what.

A week later there's a message on my voicemail. It's the detective. He says they're arresting him tomorrow. I sit down and cry. I'm so tired. I just want to be left alone with my bitter wounds. Now that things are changing I find that I don't want them to change. I want to stay here with my soft lemon daydream of rescue. I'm not sure I want to take responsibility for my own life.

September

I'm stuck playing the waiting game. I'm waiting for the police to call. They were planning to arrest him at 6am, to catch him off guard. It's three minutes past two now. My heart feels frozen. I pretend to buy bread and I pretend to eat it. If the police phone and tell me it didn't happen today I shall scream; I cannot go through this again.

At 3.30 the detective calls, and I exhale. He had already left home so they went to his place of work and arrested him there. I am told that he requested a solicitor. He would have been alone in a cell. Surely, he spent some time panicking ...

The interview lasted for just over two hours. He denied everything of course but was shaky when questioned; apparently he gave away a lot with his body language.

Now it's up to the CPS. I'm hopeful. There are two persons alleging rape (my mother and I) and another statement which details physical abuse (my sister). There is the evidence of five years' worth of counselling which I have had, plus evidence from my GP. I stand a chance.

I feel great (in a grubby, sleepy kind of way). I fucked up his day. I'd sent men to knock on his door as a message from me to him that I wasn't intimidated any more. Today is a great vengeful, smiling day. It is my judgment. I am telling him what I think and who I am and what can be done to me and what cannot.

October

I don't think I'll ever really be able to explain what I have been through this past month. The self-hatred grew into a constant, gnawing pain.

I sat, scrunched into a corner of the sofa, weeping. I kept my eyes on the door, expecting any moment that it would burst open and the monsters would come in. All this time I was suffering physical flashbacks - the sensations of rape, intense pain. At night, exhausted, I lay awake, shaking in a cold sweat.

I cried so much my tear ducts literally ached. In the end I had to go out and ask for help. I fished in my bag for my compact and did my best to create a human appearance but found the damage beyond even the powers of Clinique.

At the doctor's surgery my GP prescribes Citalopram, saying they're the mildest of the SSRIs [antidepressants].

A car pulls up beside me and the driver asks me some directions. He looks embarrassed when I turn round and he sees the most crying girl ever.

Unbelievably, back at my flat I start crying again. My flatmate holds my hand tight. I feel like her hand is pulling me from the horror of my childhood into the safe, rational world in which she lives, where people can eat and read and watch TV.

I don't understand why I feel so worthless. Especially now, after I've made the statement to the police that effectively says: "He is a shit." Why am I the shit? I'm going through the emotional equivalent of the Somme.

At the train station I start shaking. People on the platform opposite are looking at me (he wants to rape me; she is laughing at me; those two are talking about me). Train is coming. Sit here until it stops ... right - on the train - got on it safely. It's OK, it's OK, it's OK, it's OK, it's OK.

It's funny how one's ambitions narrow. Just a few weeks ago a typical list of stuff I'd like to achieve in my life would have included:

To be a successful writer;

To be fairly rich (though obviously I'd give a lot away to charity);

To have a holiday home somewhere exotic so that I will never again have to endure a British winter;

The message is from the detective. His voice is mournful. "The CPS has lost your file," he says. He apologises over and over while at the same time making it clear that none of this is his fault. I am literally paralysed by uncertainty and fear.

December

The other day someone described me as a survivor. I don't call myself a survivor. I call the others "civilians" - the non-abused people.

January 2007

Bullshit - waiting. I hate the world and all its bullshit. I'm so upset. I've barely slept in days. Just before Christmas the detective left a message saying that he'd sent the recovered medical evidence to the CPS. and that he was expecting their decision mid-January.

The source of all this pain is my life, my being. It was never my stepfather's intention to ruin my life - he just wanted to come inside something, or to feel powerful, or whatever it is that rapists want. My life is a byproduct.

And everything turns on this fucking decision that's taking so long because the only acceptable outcome is for him to go to prison. I can't live in the world without that. There's not enough room for both of us.

February 5

Still waiting.

I start to cry again. Then I get angry. I wanted something more substantial than sitting in circles talking about my feelings. I didn't want the ending to be me making some bullshit piece of art that represents my anger. I don't want to make a fucking angry quilt.

February 9

I'm cleaning house with my mobile in my pocket and no one calls. I am mopping the floor and I am crying. I phone an officer at the CID. I tell him that I'm waiting for a decision from the CPS. He says that most of the CPS. haven't been able to get to work today because of the snow.

The weekend passes.

February 12

The display says No Number - that means it is the detective. He's going to call the duty prosecutor later.

The phone rings at three and my stomach leaps to my throat. He says he's been promised a decision tomorrow morning. He apologises, he says the system is unfair - it's always the victim that suffers.

I don't know how to cope with another "night before".

My mobile rings again. It is the detective. He sounds very grave and very official. He has heard from the CPS. They've decided to take no further action.

February 13

I don't know how to carry this. I'd be better off dead. I tried to do something about it, I try to show people what he did and they say there's no case to answer. Two statements alleging rape and there's no case to answer. There's people in prison for not paying their TV licence. I would never have put myself through this if I'd known.

This stinking world where a man spent 10 years raping me; another man spent a few days investigating it; and another man a few hours reading about it and a few minutes telling me: "No - you cannot have what you want." I'm dead anyway. This has killed me.

A tiny part of me understands the decision of the CPS. The cold-rational adult part - the one that studied a degree in law - the one that argued for the rights of defendants.

But it was not her who was hurt. Try explaining to a five-year-old who has just been raped that nothing will happen to the monster who tore her body from soul and took pleasure in the doing - you explain it to her.

I live in the place where terrorists are born. With too much breath and no one to shout it at - disallowed, disenfranchised.

Politicians; society; laws - they do not speak for me, they do not protect me. I am an outlaw. I could do anything now.